Urban Land Magazine » Patricia Kirkhttp://urbanland.uli.org
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 17:25:50 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Green Innovations Adding Market Valuehttp://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/green-innovations-adding-market-value/
http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/green-innovations-adding-market-value/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 16:39:52 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/?p=27003Clean, renewable energy technologies are already powering homes, commercial buildings, and cars, but will soon be taking on heavier assignments, including moving trains, trucks, and even jets, experts said at a shared conference day of FutureBuild 2015 and the Green Marketmaker’s Conference, held in Los Angeles in late January through a partnership between ULI Los Angeles and VerdeXchange.

Toyota’s Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell automobile will be available for sale in California by the fall of 2015. (Toyota)

Clean, renewable energy technologies are already powering homes, commercial buildings, and cars, but will soon be taking on heavier assignments, including moving trains, trucks, and even jets, experts said at a shared conference day of FutureBuild 2015 and the Green Marketmaker’s Conference, held in Los Angeles in late January through a partnership between ULI Los Angeles and VerdeXchange.

A team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) is developing energy-dense fuel that could power large vehicles­—planes, trains, and trucks—by converting light to energy. The researchers are working on two types of generator, one involving oxidation of water to produce oxygen gas and the other involving the reduction of water, yielding hydrogen gas. The team is led by Nate Lewis, scientific director/principal investigator at JCAP and professor of chemistry at CalTech University in Pasadena, California, who spoke at the conference.

JCAP researchers are also addressing the need for massive grid storage for renewable energy and a replacement for high-cost materials—platinum, iridium, and lithium—used in vehicle batteries. They are working on a 3D-type printer that could discover inexpensive catalyst elements to replace the high-cost materials.

It also established strategies to achieve these goals, including a cap-and-trade program that has generated about $2 billion in revenue for the state over the past two years. This revenue will be used to fund clean technologies and mass transportation projects, such as the state’s proposed high-speed train, noted Tom Soto, managing director for TCW|Craton Equity Investors, which is investing pension fund money in this program.

Newport Beach, California–based First Element Fuel Inc., a startup that is developing the world’s first retail hydrogen fueling station network, received a $27.6 million grant from the California Energy Commission, as well as a $7 million loan from Toyota Motor Corp. to build 19 hydrogen charge points throughout the state in 2015. Toyota plans to roll out its new hydrogen fuel cell–powered car this fall. Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai already offer hydrogen fuel cell cars on a lease basis, and Honda plans to have one on the market in 2016.

FirstElement hydrogen fueling stations under development and proposed across California. (First Element Fuel)

Public/Private Collaboration

Collaborations between the public and private sectors are taking various forms. Large companies like South Korea’s LG Corp. are partnering in venture capital arrangements with tech startups, partnering with firms that are emerging from university laboratories, or acquiring such firms.

“At the core [of technology development] is government funding to university research and national laboratories,” observed Nandhu Nandhakumar, senior vice president of advanced technologies for the LG Technology Center of America. His company purchased a startup out of the University of California, Los Angeles, called Nano H2O that develops, manufacturers, and markets reverse osmosis membranes that lower the cost of desalination.

Green Tech’s Growing Economic Force

Green technology is now a big part of the Los Angeles region’s economy, noted Bill Allen, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. Southern California’s 120 colleges and universities are generating the largest high-tech workforce in the nation, and state and local governments are providing incentives for the development, production, and use of green products.

“The same creativity that enabled us [Southern California] to improve air quality will enable us to address climate change problems,” said Nancy Sutley, chief sustainability and economic development officer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).

She noted that an old industrial building in downtown Los Angeles is being repositioned as an incubator facility for startups at Cleantech LA, which brings together the business, government, and academic communities in efforts to expand the region’s green technology sector.

Among the many startups already affiliated with Cleantech LA is Chai Energy Inc., which is developing mobile apps to help consumers monitor, understand, and reduce their energy use, noted Cole Hershkowitz, chief executive officer and cofounder of the company. Los Angeles plans to invest more than $10 billion over the next ten years in research and development of clean technologies that promote sustainability and economic growth, he said.

From left, Pedro Pizarro, president of Southern California Edison; Robyn Beavers, senior vice president at NRG Energy; Robert Garcia, mayor of the City of Long Beach; and Marcie Edwards, general manager for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, speaking at the at a Future Build conference’s plenary session on “Government and Utilities as Collaborators for Sustainability.” (Photo by Patricia Kirk/ULI)

Collaboration to Fight Climate Change

In his inaugural address this January, California Governor Jerry Brown called for new energy goals, including increasing the amount of electricity generated in the state using renewable energy sources from one-third of the total to 50 percent, reducing petroleum use by cars and trucks by up to 50 percent, doubling the energy efficiency of existing buildings, and make heating fuels cleaner.

Local governments are collaborating with water and power providers to create the infrastructure necessary to meet climate change goals. “Cities have an opportunity to lead on this issue,” said Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia. He noted that Long Beach has passed an ordinance requiring the city to provide sites for electric car charging stations and utility partners to provide the hardware.

SCE is partnering with electric charging equipment providers to increase the availability of this equipment in Long Beach, the utility’s largest customer, and other cities throughout the region, said SCE president Pedro Pizarro. “Utilities are talking together about how to meet the state’s carbon reduction mandate,” he said. He noted that developing “preferred resources” requires collaboration and running pilot programs to evaluate multiple technologies and storage efficiency.

“Electrification [using renewable energy] is a great opportunity for all of us to produce revenue for our utilities and do the right thing,” said LADWP general manager Marcie Edwards. Lack of funding to replace aging infrastructure is the greatest challenge facing every U.S. city, she said. LADWP plans to invest $8.5 billion in renewable energy infrastructure and $4 billion in water infrastructure, she noted.

LADWP is decommissioning old fossil fuel plants along the coast—replacing those fuels with renewable energy resources that do not require seawater for cooling—and is overhauling the water system, Sutley said.

“Power and infrastructure are merging with the build environment,” observed Robyn Beavers, senior vice president for NRG Energy, which powers 40 million homes across the nation. Pointing out barriers to scale inherent in centralized power plants, she contends that the risk of unforeseen power disruptions, for example, could be overcome by decentralizing power delivery. This could be accomplished with installation of local microgrids and in-house power generation and storage.

She envisions energy and water distribution networks that integrate a variety of renewable energy technologies from various sources, ranging from large solar and wind installations to rooftop solar systems on homes and commercial buildings. Beavers noted that NRG is decommissioning coal-powered plants and may use the land to house various technologies integrated into distributive water and power systems.

Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS), among the first companies to enter the distributive energy networking market, installs large battery systems to store electricity in commercial buildings. This relieves pressure on the grid during peak use and provides load balancing while lowering energy costs for building owners, who get paid by power companies to be part of the solution, pointed out Susan Kennedy, AMS chief executive officer.

Reversing Climate Change

Discussing the global impact of California efforts to mitigate climate change, Felipe Fuentes, Los Angeles city councilman said, “We are building resilience into everything we do. This is an opportunity to replumb the built environment. If we only make a 1 percent difference globally, we will be a model for getting people to adopt the things we do.”

Faber at EDF agreed, pointing out that California is blazing the trail for environmental resilience and sustainability. She noted that Brown hopes to use the 2015 United Nations Climate Summit in Paris as a forum for disseminating information about California’s strategies for combatting climate change.

]]>http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/green-innovations-adding-market-value/feed/0Addressing Rising Sea Levels in South Florida and the California Coasthttp://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/south-florida-california-coast/
http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/south-florida-california-coast/#commentsFri, 26 Sep 2014 18:07:33 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/?p=25898State and municipal governments are taking steps to ensure the safety of their coastal communities by implementing more stringent design and building standards for new construction and redevelopments. They also are beginning to replace old infrastructure.

The City of Hollywood, Florida, required the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort project to use materials that will break away in storms for any outdoor facilities that are within 45 feet (13.7 m) of the beach and to use native trees like the coco palm that can withstand severe winds. (Rendering Courtesy of Lojeta Group)

State and municipal governments are taking steps to ensure the safety of their coastal communities by implementing more stringent design and building standards for new construction and redevelopment projects. They also are beginning to replace old infrastructure with flexible systems that can adapt to future conditions.

Evidence of climate change is already noticeable in low-lying areas of south Florida, notes John Englander, an oceanographer and author of High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis (Science Bookshelf, 2012). Higher monthly tides coincide with the moon’s elliptical orbit around the earth every 28 days. The seasonal April and October peak high tides—often called king tides—occur due to gravitational pull when the earth, moon, and sun are aligned. “Every 28 days, there’s saltwater in the streets of Miami,” Englander says. “This is a sign of what’s happening.”

William Hardin, a professor of real estate in the Department of Finance and Real Estate at Florida International University in Greater Miami, notes, “To get flood insurance, buildings have to be 12 feet [3.7 m] above sea level. Most everyone is looking at a slight rise in sea level and addressing it, adding a five- to seven-foot [1.5–2 m] component above the 12 feet FEMA requires, or 100-year floodplain. The real risk is the infrastructure,” he says, referring to storm drains, sewers, water lines, and underground electrical lines.

The south Florida market, which includes Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties, has 201 luxury condominium towers containing 28,100 units proposed or underway along the coast, as well as nine new luxury resort hotels, according to a recent Miami Herald report.

“People can feel much safer in newer buildings than older ones, in regard to hurricanes and rising tides,” says Lon Tabatchnick, president of Lojeta Group of Florida, which is developing a 349-key Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida. He says that’s because of new hurricane building standards for new construction, and renovation and redevelopment projects must be compliant as well.

Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, executive senior principal and president at Newport Beach, California–based Lifescapes International who designed the landscaping at the Margaritaville project, notes, for example, that all materials used in landscaping and outdoor recreational areas within 45 feet (14 m) of the sea line must be able to break away in a storm.

In addition, Brinkerhoff-Jacobs says that the local government requires a minimum of 60 percent of trees used to be native to Florida, including the pigeon palm and coco palm, which can withstand severe winds. The coco palm is Margaritaville’s signature tree, and about 150 of them are being planted to help define the project’s “island resort theme.”

As for Margaritaville’s vulnerability to sea-level rise, Tabatchnick says, “Our low point is eight feet [2.4 m] above sea level, so we’re not in danger here for the next 20 years. There’s been an effort by the city of Hollywood to restore beaches and sand dunes to eight feet above sea level, but if we don’t continue to our restore beaches and sand dunes, [rising sea level] will impact us.”

In California, Alameda Point will use adaptable strategies to protect its residential and town center components, which overlook the waterfront, against sea-level rise, including raising the grade along the shoreline and adding a levee or seawall with recreational uses on top. A significant amount of Alameda Point will remain partially submerged wetlands. (City of Alameda)

Local Efforts

Local governments in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties recognize their vulnerability and formed the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact (SFRCC) in 2009 “to put the science all in one place,” says Erin Deady, an environmental lawyer based in West Palm Beach. She points to the establishment of the SFRCC and the development of the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Action Plan as a model, which was adopted by local governments affiliated with the SFRCC. She notes that the SFRCC does technical studies and provides support to cities, and works to ensure that planning and building policies and standards are consistent throughout the region. Cities within the four-county area are also developing plans to address their own unique climate change situations.

Deady, for example, is helping Shane Laakso, city planner for the city of Islamorada, Village of Islands, a municipality with a population of 6,000 in the Florida Keys, develop a climate and sustainability plan that will be used to make decisions about investments in infrastructure to mitigate sea-level rise, flooding, severe winds, and emergency evacuation routes. Infrastructure improvement is a big safety issue for Islamorada because there is only one road in and out of the Florida Keys.

“The plan will address critical infrastructure impacted by climate change, sea-level rise, and increasing intensity of storms,” says Laakso, noting that last fall the city council decided to invest in raising water, drainage, and sewer systems. “We anticipate a three- to seven-inch [8–18 cm] sea-level rise, so we need to design infrastructure to accommodate [changing conditions] over the next 20 to 30 years,” he says.

For example, “If there is an extreme high tide, there is nowhere for the water to go. The local government could put a gate on the stormwater drain, so we can control rising water. But we have to identify vulnerable areas to plan for those effects,” Laakso adds, pointing out that the climate and sustainability plan will include this type of information.

The Californian Approach

The California Natural Resources Agency has taken the lead in that state for developing a plan to manage the risks and protect against the future effects of climate change. Local governments have accepted predictions presented in reports from the state’s Climate Action Team and Climate Action Initiative and are in the process of adopting recommendations presented in the agency’s latest update to this plan, “Safeguarding California, Reducing Climate Risk,” which was released in July.

Both the U.S. Geological Survey and the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit interdisciplinary research organization dedicated to advancing environmental protection solutions in California and globally, predict a 55-inch (140 cm) sea-level rise over the next 100 years for the entire California coast.

In the San Francisco Bay area, decommissioned military bases are being redeveloped to create new waterfront neighborhoods, with thousands of jobs, retail, and recreational amenities that will benefit adjacent communities.

The 878-acre (355 ha) Alameda Point project is redeveloping the Alameda Naval Air Station into a mixed-use development with 1,425 residential units, 5.5 million square feet (511,000 sq m) of commercial space, and 300 acres (121 ha) of peninsular land with ten miles (16 km) of trails for public recreational use.

Jennifer Ott, chief operating officer for Alameda Point, says the biggest issue discussed in selecting developers for this project is the standards they will be held to due to sea-level rise and their approach to meeting them.

“Everything must be designed to be adaptable—infrastructure and structures—beyond sea-level rise,” she stresses, noting that sea-level rise predictions by different sources vary, from 5 to 24 inches (13–61 cm) between 2030 and 2050 and 17 to 66 inches (43–168 cm) between 2050 and 2100.

(City of Alameda)

Open space that is unprotected can become wetlands or a bay as the water rises, but developed areas must be protected by a levee, she explains. Ott notes that prior to development landfill will be brought in to create an 18-inch (46 cm) grade above sea level along the shoreline, and the Town Center and Waterfront District will be elevated 24 inches (61 cm) above the 100-year floodplain. The multipurpose levee, which will be added once development is completed, would have a raised berm or seawall, with a bay trail on top and open space on both ends.

The $1.5 billion Treasure-Yerba Buena Islands project, which is redeveloping the 450-acre (182 ha) Naval Station Treasure Island, will create 8,000 residential units, 240,000 square feet (22,300 sq m) of commercial space, two hotels with a total of 500 rooms, and 300 acres (120 ha) of parks and open space. It will get underway this fall.

Developer Wilson Meany is also taking a flexible approach to managing sea-level rise at this project, or what Kheay Loke, Wilson Meany senior development manager, calls an “adaptive management strategy” to deal with uncertain predictions about sea-level rise in the San Francisco Bay area.

Initially, the grade of the Treasure Island development site will be raised three feet (1 m) above the 100-year high tide on the interior when the developer breaks ground in the fall, says Loke, “so we can withstand 36 inches [91 cm] on top of the 100-year high watermark or baseline. This may not happen, but if it does, we will build a levee at the perimeter.”

Over the last three to five years, people have become more aware of climate change and the fact that the sea level is rising, notes Englander. “People in the development community are building more sustainably, at higher density, and designing for preparedness and change, making properties more resilient,” he says. But ongoing adaptation will be necessary as climate change progresses.

“Living greener and sustainably will slow it down, but can’t stop it,” Englander adds. “Even if there are no more carbon emissions, the oceans are already saturated [with CO2], and sea level will continue to rise.”

Looking at climate change issues over the next few decades, Hardin suggests that local governments focus on creative infrastructure strategies, like Alameda Point’s flexible approach and innovative ideas that are being explored at Islamorada.

He notes that while governments are making a great deal of effort to adapt coastal projects to meet climate change predictions 30, 40, 50, and 100 years into the future, it is hard for investors to conceive of a building’s economic life extending beyond 30 to 40 years. “What’s built today will be obsolete by the time water rises,” Hardin concludes.

A two-story glass-enclosed atrium was retrofitted to manage excessive solar heat gain and is now a desirable indoor space that serves as the heart of CBRE’s Los Angeles office. (CBRE)

Creative office space, with shared work areas and places in which to socialize, interact, and collaborate with colleagues, has been popular among creative professionals, such as architects, film­makers, media professionals, and dot-commers, for some time now.

But CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), a global real estate brokerage and advisory firm, is betting that more traditional employers, including financial and legal firms, will realize the benefits that shared office space can provide if they can experience it first-hand.

The company is pioneering the transformation of the traditional office into a flexible, mobile, collaborative work environment, beginning with its new world headquarters in downtown Los Angeles and followed by plans to roll out the concept nationally and globally. But CBRE kicked the flexible office concept up a notch, partnering with New York City–based Delos Living to become the first WELL-certified commercial office space in the world, notes Lewis C. Horne, CBRE executive managing director for Greater Los Angeles.

Delos Living, the brainchild of former Wall Street broker and Goldman Sachs partner Paul Scialla, has created the first building-rating system focused on health and wellness. The Delos Living WELL Building Standard places health at the center of designing indoor environments, incorporating healthy ideas based on seven concept categories: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind. WELL Certification is performance based and requires a passing score in all seven categories.

WELL-certified office standards include more than 50 amenities and innovations that address 23 ways to improve the quality of air, water, light, nutrition, and comfort for employees.

Fitness and comfort are two of the goals addressed by WELL Building standards. CBRE’s office includes options such as treadmill desks, standing desks, and exercise balls used as desk chairs. (CBRE)

Inspired by CBRE’s creative office space in Amsterdam, Horne spearheaded the company’s shift—both physically and culturally—to a healthy, flexible work environment. CBRE is striving to become a thought leader in this experiment. “We are leading by example,” says Horne. “We pushed the envelope to create a showplace for clients interested in moving to a ‘free-address’ environment.” He adds that this concept will be “disruptive to our clients—in a good way.”

Designed by Gensler architect Lindsay Malison, the new CBRE office incorporates features similar to those found in Gensler’s new downtown Los Angeles office, plus architectural elements intended to create a “wow” factor. CBRE’s office space is on the top two floors of a 12-story building in the Bunker Hill district of downtown Los Angeles. The two floors are connected by an open staircase and a two-story glass-enclosed atrium that runs the length of the 48,000-square-foot (4,500 sq m) space.

Before renovations, the atrium had been a liability due to excessive solar heat gain during summer months; because of the difficulty and expense of cooling the space, it remained unrented. Malison solved this problem by painting the glass with a glaze that limits heat gain while letting in light, and redesigning the cooling system to incorporate chilled pipes within the air-conditioning system.

(CBRE)

The atrium facade was also redesigned to bring an unattractive window-washing balcony inside. This extra space was used to create a sky garden with 1,000 drought-resistant plants. Now the atrium is the heart of the office, providing lots of natural light and views of the downtown skyline, the Pacific Ocean, and surrounding mountains. It serves as a hub for coworkers to collaborate, meet with clients, and socialize and includes a café with large flat-screen monitors to facilitate the use of interactive media and conferencing.

The open office configuration is divided into 17 workplaces, including nine “neighborhoods” populated by groups of employees working in similar functions, such as legal and industrial, and financial and capital markets. The free-address work environment permits employees to move around to different work areas and encourages teamwork, innovation, and a drive for excellence, Horne says. The space also includes a double-height, stacked-glass (i.e., a glass wall on top of a glass wall) soundproof conference room and a number of “offices for a day,” which can be reserved by executives, brokers, lawyers, and other professionals who often require private space for confidential meetings.

Moreover, the office is a paperless environment, in which all information or documents needed by employees reside online in “the cloud.” This enables employees to work anywhere there is an internet connection, whether that might be at another CBRE office, a hotel, or their home. Horne notes that the value of this alternative work environment came into play shortly after CBRE moved into its new space when water pipes burst, leaving three inches (7.6 cm) of water on the office floor. Employees were able to take their laptops or iPads and work from another CBRE office or at home until repairs were made.

Furniture selected for workstations offers employees the option to sit or stand, with a mat provided to cushion their feet and encourage proper posture, as well as fully flexible dual monitors. Other health and wellness amenities and activities include a treadmill workstation, daily antimicrobial spray on work surfaces, 100 percent filtered air, circadian lighting that restores the natural 24-hour cycle of the human body and helps to prevent headaches and eye strain, and yoga classes.

Large video displays help CBRE’s office go paperless, and small collaboration areas are scattered throughout the space. (CBRE)

Scattered around the workplace are areas designed for collaborating and connecting with coworkers, including a café with seating, tables, a microwave, and free healthy snacks and beverages, and the Liquid Gallery, which has casual seating and a wall of photographs of employees in silly poses.

In deciding to make this transition, CBRE researched how much time employees actually spend in the office environment, concluding that office cubicles are occupied only about 50 percent of an employee’s work time. In addition, the Times Business Masterclass—a series of online business classes cosponsored by the New York Times and Hewlett Packard—predicts that 37 percent of the global workforce with be mobile by 2015. Taken together, these statistics suggest the need for transformational change to improve the way people work, Horne says.

It took nine months to plan the physical transition at CBRE. “The cultural shift into a shared environment was by far the most challenging,” says Horne, because it involved the egos of senior brokers with private offices, where the size of an office’s window defined the importance of the occupant.

“We had to bring everyone over the bridge together,” he says, noting that the neighborhood concept was created as a compromise for giving up private offices by offering a specific area where groups of senior professionals could congregate. The cultural shift is ongoing, Horne says, noting that senior executives tend to come in earlier so they can secure an “office for the day.”

One aspect that helped sell senior management on the concept was the estimated $900,000 that the healthy, free-address work environment will save the company annually, or $9 million over ten years.

]]>http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/flexible-design-showcase-cbres-world-headquarters-los-angeles/feed/1Designing Healthier Places with Value in Mindhttp://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/designing-healthier-places-value-mind1/
http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/designing-healthier-places-value-mind1/#commentsWed, 02 Apr 2014 21:58:09 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/?p=25168At the ULI Building Healthy Places Conference, developers talked about incorporating healthier features into their projects at low cost while adding value for the occupants.

Tenants enjoy the rooftop deck above the saltwater pool at Eco Modern Flats in Fayetteville, Arkansas. (Timothy Hursley/Eco Modern Flats)

At the ULI Building Healthy Places Conference, held in Los Angeles in February, developers talked about how they are incorporating healthier features into their projects at little or no cost while adding value for the occupants. One panel discussion, titled “Healthy Buildings: Designing with Value in Mind,” covered projects from Arkansas, Colorado, and the Pacific Northwest.

Jeremy Hudson, CEO and partner of Specialized Real Estate Group, talked about Eco Modern Flats, his firm’s renovation of an obsolete apartment complex in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The project was not just a surface renovation, he said, noting that while the original concrete apartment structure had “good bones,” it was an “energy hog” because it lacked proper insulation. The complex was gutted and rebuilt from the inside out.

Hudson hired a green-building consultant to assist with the project and teach him about sustainability. When Hudson, who had asthma while growing up, learned about the healthier environment inherent in sustainable designs, it was an “a-ha moment,” he said.

Tenants enjoy the rooftop deck at Eco Modern Flats in Fayetteville, Arkansas. (Timothy Hursley/Eco Modern Flats)

Attention to air quality at Eco Modern Flats includes use of paints and materials with little or no volatile organic compound (VOC) content, fresh-air vents in baths and kitchens, polished concrete floors rather than carpeting, and a nonsmoking policy. Units provide plenty of natural light with lots of windows, as well as double sliding glass doors in some units.

The building’s active design includes a rooftop deck reached by stairs, which provides a place for socializing and views of downtown, as well as landscaping that attracts hummingbirds and butterflies. The community also has a saltwater pool and an organic community garden that provides residents with fresh fruits and vegetables. The native landscaping and community garden are irrigated with rainwater.

Eco Modern Flats is the first project in Arkansas certified Platinum under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, Hudson noted. “Ninety percent of what we do for sustainability affects health in a positive way,” he said. “We started with a solid concrete building and didn’t change the square footage. We reduced energy consumption by 35 percent, but added washers and dryers and dishwashers.” Today, the complex has a tenant waiting list even though gross rents doubled, he said.

Another project designed with a specific health strategy in mind is the Breathe Easy Homes built at the High Point community, a public housing project in Seattle. This pilot project, developed by a partnership of the King County Public Health Department and the University of Washington, has produced 60 homes over the past decade designed to ease childhood asthma. Erin Christensen Ishizaki, associate principal at the Seattle-based architectural firm Mithun, which designed the project, said follow-up studies revealed a 61 percent reduction in urgent care and emergency room visits by residents and a 63 percent increase in symptom-free days.

In Denver, the city housing authority incorporated a health metrics assessment program into the Mariposa Healthy Living Initiative, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) redevelopment project in the La Alma/Lincoln Park neighborhood. The goal was to determine whether healthy amenities and features were performing as intended, said Kimball R. Crangle, senior developer at the Denver Housing Authority.

The project, located in a historic and low-income community that suffered from large-scale disinvestment, is adjacent to railroad tracks and a railroad maintenance facility, as well as two five-lane highways, she noted. Half the residents of the public housing project are children.

The master plan called for a mixed-income, nonsmoking project focused on access to transportation, environmental stewardship, infrastructure to provide pedestrian and bicycle safety and security, community and economic development, job creation, social cohesion, and healthy housing, she said.

The healthy housing component involved creating healthy indoor air; community gardens; pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, including secure bike stations; social cohesion though public gathering places, art, and a small café; a staircase that activates lights and plays music when in use; and a fitness facility. In addition, the facility provides programming aimed at increasing exercise and improving nutrition, such as fitness and healthy cooking classes.

The initial health impact assessment for residents of the 93-units in Phase II of the project found that 55 percent of residents were obese and only 28 percent exercised regularly. A follow-up survey of 200 respondents indicated that some had lost 60 to 70 pounds as a result of participation in healthy activity programming.

Crangle also emphasized that amenities and features that cultivate health do not involve a premium. The overall cost of this project was just $110 per square foot.

Ishizaki presented two other case studies during the session.

Mithun is designing the first phase of the new Chatham University Eden Hall Campus, located just east of Pittsburgh. This net-zero-energy campus built from the ground up includes a large land parcel donated to the university that will be used to create an organic garden where students can learn how to compost and grow fruits and vegetables. A century-old barn is being converted into the EcoCenter, a large multiuse building with an assembly hall, gallery space, offices, and classroom space for wellness activities, such as healthy cooking classes, that instill in students the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. The site’s New Lodge housing includes a café, a library, and a fire pit to promote social activities.

Mithun also provided design services for the Hunters View project, a public/private partnership among the San Francisco Housing Authority, Ridge Point Non-Profit Housing Corporation, John Stewart Company, and Devine & Gong Inc. This partnership is revitalizing a 267-unit public housing project in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco built in 1956, which has deteriorated beyond repair. The goal is to redevelop the project into an 800-unit, sustainable, mixed-income community while reconnecting the neighborhood with the rest of the city through infrastructure that provides pedestrian safety, including lighting and paths.

]]>http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/designing-healthier-places-value-mind1/feed/0Building Healthier Master-Planned Communitieshttp://urbanland.uli.org/news/building-healthier-master-planned-communities/
http://urbanland.uli.org/news/building-healthier-master-planned-communities/#commentsWed, 02 Apr 2014 21:58:01 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/?p=25160Four developers of master-planned communities discussed the health-related aspects of their projects during the “Legacy of Building Healthy Places” session at ULI’s Building Healthy Places conference, held in February in Los Angeles.

]]>Four developers of master-planned communities discussed the health-related aspects of their projects during the “Legacy of Building Healthy Places”session at ULI’s Building Healthy Places conference, held in February in Los Angeles. Among the topics covered at the session—moderated by Gadi Kaufmann, managing director and CEO at the Los Angeles–based real estate advisory firm RCLCO—were costs, amenities, and best practices.

“It doesn’t cost more to include healthy amenities; you just have to allocate resources right,” said Paul Johnson, senior vice president of community development at Rancho Mission Viejo, a master-planned community in Orange County, California. That project calls for 10,000 residential units on 17,000 acres (6,900 ha), with lots of open space left for events and health-oriented amenities and infrastructure.

Recently, the developer established a multigenerational neighborhood at Rancho Mission Viejo geared toward people 55 years old or older and plans an assisted living facility there to enable residents to age in place. This project increases the focus on healthy living, establishing a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has partnered with a local hospital to provide social and wellness programming. The project also has a 1.5-acre (0.6 ha) community garden where residents can pick fresh organic fruits and vegetables.

Randall W. Lewis, executive vice president and director of marketing for the Lewis Operating Company, which has developed planned communities throughout California and Nevada, said his company adapts to meet evolving best practices for creating sustainable, healthy living environments. “We address change at the community level,” he said, noting that all development is viewed through the lens of health and education.

Healthy amenities have changed over time, with dog parks and community gardens being added to the list, he said. “Walking and jogging trails have been the most important amenity for the past 20 to 30 years, and still are,” he said. “But the design has changed to a soft-surface trail system and greenways that used to be just pedestrian walkways but now connect to community amenities.”

In the future, developers need to share best practices with others in the industry and work with researchers to share ideas on research and teaching tools, he said.

At Rancho Sahuarita, a master-planned development near Tucson where 60 percent of the residents are under age 40, planning was undertaken with physical activity and mental wellness in mind, said Robert Sharpe, managing partner for the development.

The community features a five-acre (2 ha) lake surrounded by a park with an amphitheater, promenade, and gazebos; 15 neighborhood parks with picnic areas for socializing; a safari trail with butterfly and desert gardens; two large neighborhood parks with pools; Bark Park for pets; and a 19-mile (31 km) trail system that weaves through the community, connecting schools and parks to neighborhoods.

The community has partnered with a hospital and local wellness providers to offer health-promoting programs, Sharpe said, including walking, hiking, cycling, and running clubs; group exercise classes; children’s fitness camps and fitness classes for adults and youths; and social opportunities, such as outdoor movies and concerts, coffee socials, and community festivals.

Daniel C. Van Epp, executive vice president for Newland Real Estate Group, discussed healthy ideas implemented at the Pinehills master-planned community in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The developed area, which is home to 1,850 families, occupies just 30 percent of the 3,174-acre (1,284 ha) site, leaving 2,200 acres (890 ha) of natural open space and recreational areas. The development has formed partnerships with a local hospital to provide programming and has established more than 30 community clubs that provide opportunities for social and health-oriented activities and exercise.

Also, a 14,000-square-foot (1,300 sq m) fresh food market, cited by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as the state’s first “healthy market,” opened in the Pinehills town center. Noting that the market attracts customers from throughout the region, Van Epp said the $6 million investment is paying for itself, with about 1,200 shoppers from throughout the region visiting daily.

]]>http://urbanland.uli.org/news/building-healthier-master-planned-communities/feed/1Solar Decathlon: Creating a Cutting-Edge Village in Orange Countyhttp://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/solar-decathlon/
http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/solar-decathlon/#commentsMon, 16 Dec 2013 16:32:26 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/?p=24229The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon was held October 3 to 13 at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California, attracting nearly 64,000 visitors.

The overall Solar Decathlon winner—LISI House, by Team Austria of Vienna University of Technology—combines passive energy strategies with design elements, like the automated shading system consisting of white, die-cut drapery that encircles the home, casting a leaflike shadow into the living area. (John Connell)

When international teams of university students recently constructed a solar village, their creations predictably revealed innovative approaches to designing extremely high-performance homes. But the dwellings that the teams crafted also reflect and support the lifestyle, values—and financial means—of their generation Y creators.

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon was held October 3 to 13 at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California—the first time the biennial event was held outside the nation’s capital—and attracted nearly 64,000 visitors, according to an estimate by the city of Irvine. The Solar Decathlon franchise is expanding, with a version having been held in Datong, China, in August 2013, and Solar Decathlon Europe scheduled for June 27 through July 14, 2014, in Versailles, France.

The competition includes ten juried or measured contests, with up to 100 points awarded for each category. The categories include architecture, market appeal, engineering, communications, affordability, comfort zone, hot water, appliances, home entertainment, and energy balance. The Solar Decathlon overall winner is the project that accumulates the highest score across the ten contests.

The teams applied a holistic methodology to achieve cutting-edge, sustainable designs that integrate energy solutions with attractive design elements to create flexible, functional living spaces that support a relaxed, informal, healthy lifestyle.

Jacob Atella, senior director of sustainability for KB Home, a Los Angeles–based homebuilder, noted that “every one [of the projects] celebrates the indoor-outdoor connection.” The floor plans are flexible, adjustable, and open, maximizing use of space by combining kitchen, dining room, and living room into one large, open living area, he noted. Living areas open onto large outdoor spaces, connecting occupants with nature and expanding living space to accommodate entertaining. Atella is vice chair of the ULI Orange County–Inland Empire Sustainable Communities Initiative Council.

The University of West VIrginia team created a living wall and greenhouse on the sunny side of PEAK that collects from the sun and releases it into the living area when the interior greenhouse doors are opened. (John Connell)

The interior of LISI (Living Inspired by Sustainable Innovation) House by Team Austria of Vienna University of Technology—this year’s overall winner—measures only about 700 square feet (65 sq m), but it lives larger with an open floor plan and plenty of storage integrated into walls. The interior wood floors continue outside, creating decks on both sides of the house to expand the living area. During the summer, double-paned, floor-to-ceiling glass doors can disappear into walls, fusing the interior living area with the outdoors.

To achieve the goal of creating homes that produce as much energy as they use, the 19 multidisciplinary university-led teams from four nations—the United States, Canada, Austria, and the Czech Republic— collaborated to design residences that use a mix of passive and active energy solutions to achieve net-zero energy efficiency—consuming no more, and preferably less, energy than they produce.

Passive energy solutions are of great interest to Judi Schweitzer, principal and chief sustainability adviser at Schweitzer+Associates, a sustainable real estate consultancy based in Lake Forest, California. After touring the exhibits, she noted, “These kinds of solutions tap into nature’s income”—taking advantage of what the climate offers. “Builders have known for years how to use passive strategies to improve energy efficiency, but for some reason there seems to be resistance in the marketplace to apply them to capture natural capital,” Schweitzer said.

The fluxHome design by the University of Southern California (USC), for example, takes advantage of southern California’s climate, said USC team member Evyn Larson, with openings situated to capture passive ventilation from the southwestern breeze. “The skylight acts as a solar chimney, allowing hot air to rise out of the house,” she said, noting that the skylight’s optical shade senses weather conditions, opening when it’s hot and closing when it rains.

Third-place decathlon winner—AIR House, by the Czech Technical University team—has a passive solar canopy consisting of wood slats that cover the entire building and southern-facing wall and help eliminate the need for air conditioning. (John Connell)

Team Capitol D.C., a collaboration of the Catholic University of America, George Washington University, and American University, used Flexinol wire louvers to shade windows on the southern exposure of its HARVEST HOME entry to prevent solar heat gain. Flexinol wire contracts when heated by outdoor ambient air, causing the louvers to close.

Atella cited the DALE (Dynamic Augmented Living Environment) entry, a collaboration of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology, as a project that pushes the envelope in terms of flexibility. The project consists of two modular sections mounted on rails. At the push of a button, the two modular sections slide apart to create an outdoor living space—tripling the size of the living area from 600 to 1,800 square feet (56 to 167 sq m). Thirty-two photovoltaic (PV) panel slide overhead to provide shade.

This project also has interior walls that can be moved back and forth to increase the size of bedrooms or the living room, depending on which space is in use. Another example of adjustable design elements is displayed in the UrbanEden entry by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, in which the entertainment center transforms into a Murphy bed.

Schweitzer said she was especially impressed by passive energy solutions that also are used as design elements. Middlebury College, for instance, created a walkway shaded by the InSite house’s solar panels, instead of using the panels as part of a traditional rooftop array.

The University of Nevada at Las Vegas created a digitally fabricated, retractable solar screen to shield the hottest side of the DesertSol house—the competition’s second-place winner—in summer and capture the sun’s warmth in winter. The metal solar screen, which was rusted to match the home’s weathered facade, is imbedded with the muted outline of a mesquite tree to create a work of art.

Schweitzer also said the greenhouse built into the University of West Virginia’s PEAK (Preserving Energy with Appalachian Knowledge) house is a “brilliant” passive energy design element for the Appalachian mountain region’s climate. A living wall and greenhouse located on the sunny side of the house collect heat from the sun and release it into the living area when the interior greenhouse doors open.

Team Texas, a collaboration of the University of Texas at El Paso Community College, designed the ADAPT house for environmentally conscious urban dwellers. It has adaptable flex spaces and a modular structure ideal for placement in an exiting urban neighborhood. (John Connell)

She also praised the passive solar design in Team Austria’s LISI House, which includes an automated shading system consisting of white drapery, die-cut with a design inspired by military camouflage fabric, that casts a leaflike shadow into the living area. This curtain wraps around the perimeter of the building like a cocoon, shading the structure and lending it an elegant appearance. The curtain opens and closes with the push of a button to let in the sun’s warmth in winter and provide shade in summer, and offers privacy for occupants.

While the building’s technology is essential to the home’s capacity to produce a surplus of energy, Gregor Pils, the project manager for Team Austria, pointed out that the LISI House design provides “understatement of the technology, with PV hidden on the roof, so it’s not the first thing you see.”

Team Austria also created a multifunctional subfloor system at the LISI House that regulates indoor climate using water and air, and these elements employ active cubic capacity to hold heat or cold. Pils explained that two high-efficiency, air-water heat pumps supply the system with cold and hot water for heating and cooling, as well as provide hot water for domestic use. The ventilation system in the floor heats and cools the living area. Cold water is pumped into pipes in the floor and as air flows past them it cools the room. In addition, the energy-recovery ventilation unit acts as a heat and humidity exchanger between exhaust and fresh air, keeping living spaces comfortable and healthy.

Atella noted that this type of system is superior because it gradually changes room temperature and maintains a constant level of comfort, rather than the intermittent warming or cooling inherent in conventional systems, which create hot and cold spots.

Czech Technical University’s AIR (affordable, innovative, recyclable) House—which placed third in the competition—features a passive solar canopy that shades the structure while producing energy. Project structural engineer Pavel Nechanický noted that the solar canopy consists of wood slats that cover the building and the southern-facing wall, helping to eliminate the need for air conditioning. Cross-laminated wall panels used in the living area hold thermal balance, and a radiant chilled ceiling system regulates humidity and stabilizes indoor comfort, he said.

Atella suggested that the prefabricated CORE in Stanford University’s Start.Home is a “takeaway” with potential application for KB Home. The prefabricated CORE module, which includes a kitchen counter and appliances, a bathroom, a laundry room, and a mechanical room with integrated electrical and plumbing systems, can be transported easily and plugged into the main section of this modular structure. The mechanical room is a compact, energy-efficient distribution center that facilitates control and maintenance. CORE’s systems were built on a plug and-play concept and can be easily updated by replacing the outdated module, he noted.

DALE, a collaboration of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology, can triple its size at the push of a button. (John Connell)

Atella is also interested in intelligent home systems, which control lights, mechanical functions, and other home functions. Team Ontario—a collaboration of Queen’s University, Carleton University, and Algonquin College— created a sophisticated intelligent home system for its ECHO house, which won the engineering contest. Using real-time data generated by a roof-mounted weather station,the system detects changes in climate and automatically adjusts lighting, windows, blinds, and heating or cooling systems to maintain interior comfort and safety. The system can also be controlled remotely with a tablet app.

HARVEST HOME and UrbanEden offer innovative garden concepts. The HARVEST HOME team created a pop-up vegetable garden using milk crates. Noting that this house is being donated to the Wounded Warrior Program in San Diego, project manager Robert Blabolil said the milk-crate concept is part of the home’s universal design, allowing the disabled veteran who will occupy the house to move plants around or take them into the kitchen for harvesting.

UrbanEden features vertical “wallgardens” of removable planters. The living room garden panel has sweet-smelling florals to create an inviting space, while the kitchen panel features vegetables and herbs. Outside the bedroom, thick ever- green vegetation ensures privacy year-round. The gardens’ vertical configuration uses an efficient, water-conserving drip irrigation system; each planter box has holes in the bottom to allow water to drain from the top module all the way to the bottom plant.

Several homes also used sensory design elements to evoke a positive emotional re – sponse. Designed for a veteran with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or a traumatic brain injury (TBI), HARVEST HOME uses its garden, colors, and other sensory strategies to create a tranquil atmosphere that calms the body, mind, and spirit, explained Blabolil.

DesertSol, by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas team, used a variety of passive energy strategies, including the metal solar screen, which was rusted to match the home’s weathered facade. It doubles as an artwork, embedded with the shadow of a mesquite tree. (John Connell)

ECHO also has a sensory feature: a band of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, which circles the perimeter of home’s main living area about a foot below the ceiling and changes colors, effectively changing the color of the walls at the push of a button.

In addition, projects reduced their carbon footprints by using recycled and renewable materials. For example, LISI House is 96 percent wood and is constructed of locally available timber products. “We used everything from the tree,” said Pils, noting that the organic insulation is 49 percent timber material, and even the tree bark was used to construct kitchen chairs.

HARVEST HOME comprises 80 percent reclaimed and recycled materials, according to Kyle Noell, the project’s sponsorship and construction manager, who noted that the 100-year-old wood floor was reclaimed from a deconstructed church in Ohio, and the wood studs came from a deconstructed building in Washington, D.C.

The UrbanEden team used precast geopolymer cement concrete as the primary building material. Compared with conventional concrete, this material provides a 90 percent reduction in the carbon footprint of a building and creates a barrier to city noise.

The Middlebury College team created a shaded walkway using photovoltaic panels at Insite House, instead of putting them on the roof. Because Middlebury lacks graduate engineering and architecture schools, this team—a collection of students from 25 disciplines—obtained information to build this house from the internet. (John Connell)

Designing for the Masses

Ranging in size from about 600 to 1,000 square feet (56 to 93 sq m), projects recognize the growing market for housing that meets the needs of the nation’s two largest groups of homebuyers: generation Y (also referred to as the echo boomers, or millennials) and baby boomers. Some of the homes have only one bedroom, while others add a small multipurpose room that could be used as an office, a guest room, or a child’s bedroom.

Pils said the LISI design is ideal for a retirement cottage or a second home in the countryside. Noting that empty nesters account for 20 percent of the Czech Republic’s population, Nechanický said the 700-square-foot (65 sq m) AIR House, which is estimated to cost about US$300,000, targets this group. Santa Clara University’s Radiant House and SHADE, by a collaboration of Arizona State University and University of New Mexico, also target retiring baby boomers.

Other projects target young gen-Y professionals. ECHO, with an estimated price of just $257,584, targets the average young, professional Canadian couple, which earns about $80,000 on average per year. ECHO can evolve with the family, providing a small extra room that could be used as an office or a bedroom for one or two children. Team Texas, a collaboration of the University of Texas and El Paso Community College, designed its ADAPT home for young urban singles, couples, and other environmentally conscientious homebuyers. This project features adaptable flex spaces and a modular structure ideal for placement near an urban environment or in an existing neighborhood. Missouri University of Science and Technology’s Chameleon House is aimed at tech-savvy and budget-conscious young professionals interested in reducing their carbon footprint. The house has a modern aesthetic to engage recent college graduates and supports both a quiet working atmosphere as well as social gatherings.

Team Austria’s LISI entry brings the outdoors inside with the living area’s wood floor extending to create decks and gardens on two sides of the home. (Judi Schweizter)

Special Needs

A few projects are geared toward people with special needs. Team Capitol D.C.’s universally designed HARVEST HOME features Americans with Disabilities Act universal design requirements for physical accessibility.

Designed for easy transport and quick construction by semiskilled laborers, Borealis, the University of Calgary’s entry, offers workers in Alberta’s northern territory an alternative to crowded work camps. Also designed for rapid assembly, Phoenix House by the Kentucky/Indiana team, a collaboration of the University of Louisville, Ball State University, and the University of Kentucky, is designed for middle-class families displaced by tornadoes or other natural disasters.

Schweitzer commended the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for sponsoring this event. “Every one of these projects is a winner,” she said, noting the thoughtful creativity and diversity of ideas in projects designed to meet various challenges presented by different demographics, climates, and geographical regions.

Decathlon Champs

The overall winner of this year’s competition is the Living Inspired by Sustainable Innovation (LISI) House by Team Austria of Vienna University of Technology.

DesertSol House, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas team’s entry, took second place, and AIR (affordable, innovative, recyclable) House, by the Czech Technical University team, came in third.

An improving economy, along with an upswing in convention and tourism business, has spawned a boom in hotel development throughout Chicago’s central business district. More than a dozen new hotels have opened over the past year, are under construction, or are undergoing renovation or expansion.

The downtown market currently has about 34,000 hotel rooms, but Nate Sahn, senior managing director and hotel practice leader for the Los Angeles–based brokerage firm CBRE, estimates that in 2016 when projects under construction and planned are completed, hotel room capacity will increase by 15 to 20 percent.

“I think this recovery is going to be steady and long lasting,” Sahn says. “There’s pent-up demand and a lot of money to be placed, invested.” Investment capital is made up of a mix of domestic and foreign money coming out of Europe, the Mideast, and East Asia, he notes. He cites two examples: a German pension fund that has invested in the new JW Marriot that opened in July in the financial district, and Qatari investors who have purchased 75 percent of the new Radisson Blu, which opened in 2011 as part of a mixed-use project.

Sahn also notes that lenders are offering very attractive financing on development deals, so developers now can afford to pursue more speculative projects.

More than 600 companies moved to Chicago or expanded their operations there in 2012, adding more than 50,000 jobs, according to the city’s annual “World Business Chicago” report. This included an upturn in the manufacturing and high-tech sectors, which significantly increased the flow of business travelers to the city, as well as demand for select-service hotel rooms, notes Greg LaBerge, national director for the Marcus & Millichap brokerage firm’s National Hospitality Group. As opposed to full-service hotels, select- or limited-service hotels provide basic services business travelers require, such as free wi-fi and a business center with computers, printers, and a fax machine.

He cites a turnaround in the auto industry and the emergence of a high-tech incubator in downtown’s Fulton Market–Randolph meatpacking district as primary forces affecting business travel. The authenticity of the old industrial buildings in this northwest downtown district is attracting tech companies, which are repositioning the properties as creative office space—and in the process bringing the district back to life. Google, for example, plans to move its Chicago office into the district’s old Fulton Market Cold Storage building. Previously obsolete industrial buildings also have been converted for use as restaurants and bars.

Hotels are coming to the area, as well. Recently, a joint venture of Chicago-based Shapack Development and AJ Capital Partners began converting an old rubber belt factory into a 40-room SoHo House, a London hotel group brand. In addition, Chicago developer Sterling Bay Cos. is planning a new 150-room hotel on a site adjacent to Google’s new offices, and Chicago developer Mark Hunt has proposed a 12-story, 120-room hotel and Japanese restaurant for New York City–based Nobu Hospitality, which is owned in part by actor Robert De Niro.

A 1,200-room hotel is being added to Chicago’s McCormick Place, the largest conference facility in the Western Hemisphere and now second in business only to facilities in Orlando, Florida. (Choose Chicago)

City Puts Hotel Developer Wheels in Motion

The city’s increase in group and leisure travel business over the past couple of years is the result of changes in the city’s convention and tourism operations—with some help from strategically focused marketing by Choose Chicago, the city’s convention and tourism bureau.

Scheduled to open in 2015, the Loews on North Park Drive, part of a mixed-use project in the affluent Streeterville neighborhood, will have 400 hotel rooms and 398 apartments. (SCB Architects)

Don Welsh, president and chief executive officer of Choose Chicago, credits Mayor Rahm Emanuel for supporting quick implementation of three major changes that restored the city’s competitive advantage as a convention market:

The city’s convention and tourism agencies were collapsed into one new agency, Choose Chicago, responsible for both sectors.

The city’s convention and tourism budget was increased from $13 million in 2011 to $24 million in 2012 and again to $33 million this year. This enabled Choose Chicago to establish ten foreign marketing offices throughout the Americas (Brazil, Mexico, and Canada), Asia (China and Japan), and Europe (United Kingdom, Brussels, and Germany), and launch regional advertising campaigns that targeted leisure tourists living in major cities within a 300-mile (480 km) radius of Chicago.

Labor rules at McCormick Place, the city’s convention center, were relaxed and prices for services were more competitively priced after several major convention clients threatened to take their business elsewhere. Previously, exhibitors were required to use union labor to set up and break down exhibition booths, but now they are allowed to do the work themselves. McCormick Place also began to offer free wi-fi and lowered both prices for the use of utilities by convention participants and the markup on food and beverage service.

As a result of these changes, Chicago moved up three notches over the past year to second place—behind only Orlando, Florida, and passing Las Vegas—on the list of the top 50 U.S. meeting destinations based on event bookings, compiled by Cvent, a meetings management company.

Welsh notes that with the resurgence in the city’s meeting business, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns McCormick Place and the 1,260-room Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel, has announced plans to add a new 1,200-room hotel and a 10,000-seat multipurpose arena there.

The 1920s art deco Carbide and Carbon Building is now home to the Hard Rock Hotel Chicago. (Hard Rock Hotel chicago)

Also, the number of tourists visiting Chicago rose by 7 million over two years, from 39.2 million in 2010 to 46.2 million in 2012, according to Choose Chicago’s annual “Hotel Performance Report.” Domestic visits rose 11.2 percent, and leisure travel increased by 6 percent, outperforming average national increases in those categories of 6.7 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.

John Chikow, president and chief executive officer of the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association (GNMAA), a business improvement organization that promotes retailers on the city’s Magnificent Mile along Michigan Avenue, notes that this shopping district is seeing more foreign shopping tourists than ever, which is helping drive hotel development in the area.

GNMAA sponsors two major retail events that attract regional shoppers—the Magnificent Mile Shop Fest, a 12-day event that begins in late August, and the BMO Harris Bank Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, which takes place the weekend before Thanksgiving. Chikow notes that the Lights Festival is the biggest annual event in Chicago, attracting 1.2 million people in 2012. During this event, the area’s hotel occupancy rate typically soars to 98 percent, he says.

Average hotel occupancy this year has climbed back to the 75 percent high watermark set in 2006, even though the number of hotel rooms has increased by 6,000, according to a recent report by CBRE. Visitors pump $12 billion into the city’s economy each year, providing 120,000 jobs and generating $500 million in tax revenue, notes Welsh.

Emanuel and the Choose Chicago board of directors have set a goal of a total of 50 million visitors by 2020, Welsh notes. Attaining this goal would increase total tourism revenue to $15 billion a year, add 15,000 to 25,000 jobs, and more than double the city’s tax receipts from tourism-related businesses to $1.2 billion.

Plethora of New Hotels Rising

The city’s second-tallest building at 96 stories, Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, seen here behind the Wrigley Building, is a mixed-use project on the Gold Coast with 339 hotel rooms, 486 condominiums, and 17 floors of retail and office space. (Choose Chicago)

According to Choose Chicago, 1,950 new hotel rooms will come on line this year in the downtown market, and another 2,050 rooms now under construction are expected to be completed by 2015.

About 60 percent of hotel development is in the north Loop/Michigan Avenue area, notes architect Christine Carlyle, a principal and director of planning at Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB), an architecture, planning, and interior design firm in the city. This area adjacent to Lake Michigan, known as Chicago’s Gold Coast and home to the Magnificent Mile shopping district, attracts millions of leisure travelers annually thanks to its location.

SCB architect Gary Kohn designed the new Loews mixed-use hotel project on North Park Drive in the north Loop area. Developed by Chicago-based DRW Trading Group and owned and managed by Loews Hotels & Resorts, the project, scheduled to open in 2015, includes a 400-key hotel and 398 luxury apartments. Located in the affluent Streeter­ville neighborhood, the project is part of a large planned development connecting Chicago’s riverfront and lakefront to North Michigan Avenue.

“This is Loews’s first Chicago hotel, and they looked a while for the right site,” says Kohn. The 52-story project’s contemporary, glassy design takes advantage of views of city lights, the Chicago River, and Lake Michigan.

“This is a very walkable neighborhood with lots of restaurants in the area, and there’s shopping and entertainment across the street, including a bowling alley, movie theater, marketplace, and nightclubs,” Kohn adds. The site also is just a ten-minute walk from the downtown shopping district and lake, he notes.

Designed with hopes of garnering a four star–plus hotel rating, the L-shaped tower is organized to provide guests “a gracious arrival,” he says. The structure’s nearly 1 million square feet (93,000 sq m) of space will consist of a four-story hotel podium with ballrooms, meeting space, two restaurants, a bar, and a large terrace for events, topped by 12 stories of sophisticated hotel rooms, and 36 stories with a combination of apartments and amenities.

Residents will have access to hotel room service, concierge service, and housekeeping services, as well as to multiple roof terraces with outdoor bars and cafés, indoor and outdoor pools, and a fitness club, Kohn notes.

Although the project is not pursuing certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, he says, “the building is designed for high performance and energy efficiency for both lighting and the HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air conditioning] system, has a green roof, and high-performance tinted glass. We spent a lot of time getting that right.”

Carlyle observes that the Loews project, which places residential units atop a luxury, full-service hotel, signals the return of this concept, which became popular just before the economic downturn. Several other Chicago mixed-use projects built over the past decade in Chicago’s Gold Coast area were based on a similar concept. The 67-story Hyatt Park Tower has 198 hotel guestrooms, 57 stories of condominiums, and 20,000 square feet (1,900 sq m) of retail space. The Waldorf Astoria Chicago (formerly Elysian Hotel & Residences) contains 160 ultra-luxe two-room hotel suites and 27 floors of condominiums. Both projects were designed by Chicago architect Lucien Lagrange. In the same category is the 96-story, five-star Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, which has 486 condominiums atop a 339-room hotel and 17 floors of office and retail space.

All three of these projects offer five-star service and amenities, and both the Waldorf Astoria and Trump International Tower introduced the popular Las Vegas condo-hotel concept to Chicago, offering individual condo owners the option of booking hotel guests into their condo-hotel room when they are not using it.

Another recent mixed-use project, the soaring 87-story Aqua Tower, which is part of the 28-acre (11 ha) Lakeshore East master-planned development by Chicago’s Magellan Development, has 745 residential units atop a 334-room Radisson Blu hotel, plus retail and office space. Designed by environmentally conscious Chicago architect Jeanne Gang of Studio/Gang Architects, this thought-provoking, contemporary project received a Silver rating from the LEED program in July.

Opening in November 2011, the four-star Radisson Blu is a $125 million joint venture of Magellan and Minneapolis-based Carlson Hotels, financed by Hartford, Connecticut–based Cornerstone Advisors, investment manager of MassMutual’s equity real estate investments. In 2012, a 75 percent interest in the hotel was sold to Qatari investment firm Al Faisal Holdings, says Robert Kleinschmidt, Carlson executive vice president and chief financial and development officer for the U.S. market.

Carlson chose Chicago to introduce the Radisson Blu brand to the U.S. market, Kleinschmidt notes. “The opportunity to develop a hotel in MacArthur genius Jeanne Gang’s Aqua Tower matched the brand’s commitment to world-class design and sustainable hospitality,” he says. “Chicago’s historic role as a standard-bearer for architecture and innovation made selection of the city all the more easy. Chicago as an incubator of innovation in design was a clear fit.”

Chicago’s large stock of aging, iconic commercial buildings has inspired another hotel development trend: a large number of the city’s historic, architecturally significant landmark office buildings are being converted to conventional or boutique hotels.

Located in the financial district, across the street from the Federal Reserve Bank building, the JW Marriott Chicago opened in July in the Continental & Commercial National Bank Building, designed by acclaimed architect and planner Daniel Burnham.

Lagrange spearheaded the building’s $396 million restoration and conversion of the lower half of the 20-story structure to a 610-key hotel. The upper half of the project, owned by Chicago developer Prime Group and a Germany-based investment syndicate, remains office space.

Lagrange—who also converted a 1910 classical revival Beaux-Arts landmark building designed by Marshall & Fox to the Blackstone Hotel, and the 1920s art deco Carbide & Carbon Building to the Hard Rock Hotel Chicago—says old office buildings make ideal hotels because they typically have big floor plates, large rooms, tall ceilings, and architecturally unique details. He also notes that conversion projects can be completed faster—within 12 to 14 months—than new, ground-up construction, saving time and money.

“As a building, the Continental & Commercial National Bank Building, works perfectly for a hotel, and everything fell into place,” says Lagrange. The building had a large, 9,000-square-foot (836 sq m) hall suitable for a ballroom, and the hall’s ceiling had a height of 100 feet (30.5 m), he notes, which provided enough space to create another level for a junior ballroom and still have a 40-foot (12 m) ceiling.

The ground-level floor plate was spacious enough to accommodate a lobby, the kitchen, and retail services. Also, individual offices had two windows per room and a basic room size 16 feet (4.9 m) deep, which Lagrange says is ideal for a Marriott guestroom.

Advantages of Repositioning

The lavishly restored 14-story Hotel Burnham, one of four boutique hotels in Chicago operated by Kimpton Hotels, occupies one of the city’s first skyscapers, the 1894 Reliance Building. (Kimpton Hotels)

“Taking a building that doesn’t work anymore as an office building and turning it into a hotel creates value,” Lagrange emphasizes. “You could spend millions renovating it for use as an office building, but you will still have an obsolete office building. The conversion saves the building, and gives it a new financial life,” perhaps extending its use for another 100 years, he says.

“And because this is a perfect use for this building [the Continental & Commercial National Bank Building], the conversion changes the life of the street,” adding a hotel, restaurant, and bar to a street that previously was void of amenities, Lagrange says.

John Rutledge, founder and president/chief executive officer of Chicago-based Oxford Capital Group, which has completed ten hotel conversion projects, points out that old office buildings usually have good locations in the city’s core. They also have good “bones” and are architecturally beautiful structures with striking detailing, he says. “These are art gems with classic visual appeal. You can’t justify replicating this in a modern building.”

From a financial perspective, old commercial buildings can be repositioned at a significant discount, Rutledge says—well below replacement cost or the cost of new construction. “Frequently they are local and national landmarks, so [they] get historic tax credits,” he notes.

The project also may qualify for city tax incentives if it is in a tax-incentive financing district or repositions an empty office building. His company recently developed the swanky 316-key Langham Hotel Chicago, located at 330 North Wabash Avenue in the north Loop/River North area, which opened in July on the first 13 floors of the IBM Building. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, this 52-story tower—which the Chicago Tribune called a “starkly rectilinear monolith” of anodized aluminum and bronze-tinted glass—transformed the city’s skyline when it opened in 1972.

Dirk Lohan—Mies’s grandson, cofounder of Chicago architectural firm Lohan Anderson, and designer of the Langham’s ground-floor lobby and ballroom—says that in the 1970s the building represented a “pioneering jump north of the river, as that area was underdeveloped at the time.” He also notes that the building’s midcentury modernist architecture gives it high visibility on the street. “There’s a generosity in this building you don’t get in newer buildings,” he adds. For instance, the 15-foot (4.6 m) depth of the former offices provided space for spacious guestrooms with very large baths.

The Hotel Burnham’s Reliance Room. (Kimpton Hotels)

Oxford Capital also recently teamed up with Angelo, Gordon & Co., a privately held investment advisory firm based in New York City, to purchase the London Accident and Guarantee Building, a 22-story landmark on Michigan Avenue with classical architecture that was built in the 1920s. Oxford Capital plans to convert this building to a hotel, too, as part of a transformation project to connect a stretch of Michigan Avenue near Millennium Park to the Magnificent Mile shopping district north of the Chicago River.

U.K.-based Virgin Hotels has also chosen a Chicago landmark, the Old Dearborn Bank Building, to house its first hotel in the United States. Designed by Chicago architects and brothers Cornelius W. and George Leslie Rapp and completed in 1928, this 27-story art deco building at 230 North Wabash Avenue was among the first office towers built north of the river. The hotel will have six food and beverage venues and a world-class spa.

Customers of Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America airlines will help fill this boutique hotel’s 250 guestrooms, suggests Doug Carrillo, vice president of sales and marketing for Virgin Hotels, North America. “We feel that this offering will play to our loyal Virgin customers,” he says.

Building Midmarket Capacity

The Public Chicago’s design may represent the future select-service hotel model, offering services and amenities that attract a specific type of guest. This hotel appeals to gen-Y guests, offering various places to linger and socialize. (Public Hotels)

New York City hotel mogul Ian Schrager’s new 235-room Public Chicago, which opened in 2011, is an example of both the financial benefits of repositioning historic buildings and of how boutique hotels are meeting growing demand for competitively priced accommodations with services that meet the needs of both business travelers and budget-conscious tourists.

Backed by Morgan Stanley, Schrager paid $25 million for the Ambassador East Hotel, a 1926 landmark, and invested $35 million redesigning and renovating it to boutique standards.

In a December 2011 interview with Travel & Leisure magazine, Schrager noted that his no-frills hotel, with rooms rates starting at $140 a night, offers an alternative to pricey accommodations. “There’s a paradigm shift in this country,” he says. “People want to be more modest. Even if they have the money, they don’t want to spend it extravagantly anymore.” His aim is to provide guests a memorable experience without the unnecessary luxury services that most people neither need nor use.

He compares his hotel to a Hilton Garden Inn or Marriott Courtyard combined with the service of a Four Seasons. But unlike chain hotels, the Public Chicago is a slick, hip, unique project programmed to appeal to gen-Y guests. It offers various places to linger and socialize, including a lobby that doubles as a community office with a huge Christian Liaigre table occupied by five MacBook Pro computers. There also is an in-house restaurant/bar, a coffee bar, and a fitness center.

Similarly, Kimpton’s four Chicago projects are boutique hotels that appeal to certain guest types. All are pet friendly and LEED certified. With the exception of the Hotel Palomar, which is a contemporary structure, the Kimpton hotels occupy landmark buildings and offer guests a unique, historic experience. The chain’s Hotel Burnham and Hotel Monaco also are part of Retrofit Chicago’s Commercial Buildings Initiative, the city’s sustainability program, which requires a reduction in energy use of at least 20 percent from 2010 levels.

Kimpton’s Hotel Allegro is housed in the original Bismarck Hotel, which opened in 1894 in the heart of the Chicago theater and business districts. Countless artists, entertainers, politicians, and celebrities have stayed in the building over the past century. (Kimpton Hotels)

Constructed in 1895 by legendary Chicago architects Daniel Burnham and John Root, the 14-story, 122-room, select-service Hotel Burnham, located at the corner of State and Washington streets in the north Loop area, was one of the world’s first steel-frame skyscrapers and at the time was one of Chicago’s tallest buildings.

Kimpton’s 483-room, full-service Hotel Allegro, developed in 1894 as the Bismarck Hotel by German brothers Emil and Karl Eitel, is located at the heart of the theater and business districts and has hosted countless artists, entertainers, politicians, and celebrities over the past century.

And the select-service, 181-room Hotel Monaco restored the headquarters of the old D.B. Fisk Company, a hat maker, with an eye to preserving this steel-framed, brick-masonry building’s charming, terra-cotta decorative elements that make it both historic and unique.

Chicago’s Hotel Future

“The hotel space is an exciting place to be right now,” says LaBerge of Marcus & Millichap. “Arguably, hotels provide one of the fastest-growing, most attractive yields.” But he notes that there is an on­going argument about whether big, full-service hotels will be built in the future. “They’re difficult to build and not as profitable versus select service,” he says. Also, boutique hotels fit the select-service model and now constitute a national trend, he notes.

“This makes sense,” LaBerge continues. “There’s greater demand for a Hilton Garden than a full-service Hilton.” However, the select-service model of the future may look more like the Public Chicago, he says.

Noting that revenue per available room is improving, Sahn of CBRE points out that groups are buying up old buildings to convert to hotels because the midmarket is underserved. “They feel that if they come in with the right management, they can penetrate this market in a positive way,” he says.

And despite the number of large luxury hotels coming on line or under construction, Sahn agrees that the future of this product type is uncertain. “Unlike coastal markets, Chicago is a Midwest city and will never be a $300- to $400-per-night market,” he says.” It will be interesting to see what the Chicago hotel market looks like five years in the future.”

]]>http://urbanland.uli.org/industry-sectors/hotels/checking-in-chicagos-hotel-resurgence/feed/1Next Step for Chicago’s Bloomingdale Trail: A Broader Identityhttp://urbanland.uli.org/fall-meeting/next-step-for-chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-a-broader-identity/
http://urbanland.uli.org/fall-meeting/next-step-for-chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-a-broader-identity/#commentsFri, 02 Aug 2013 14:40:00 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/news/next-step-for-chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-a-broader-identity/What for a decade had been referred to either as the “Bloomingdale Trail” or simply “the Bloomingdale” will be referred to going forward as “the 606,” it was announced in June by the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit organization that conserves land for public open space. The number denotes the zip-code prefix shared by all Chicagoans and alludes to the trail’s origin as a rail line.

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What for a decade had been referred to either as the “Bloomingdale Trail” or simply “the Bloomingdale” will be referred to going forward as “the 606,” it was announced in June by the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit organization that conserves land for public open space. The number denotes the zip-code prefix shared by all Chicagoans and alludes to the trail’s origin as a rail line.

Similar to New York’s High Line, the 606 is an elevated railroad right-of-way converted to a pedestrian greenway. Chicago’s version is a multifunctional park system that also includes a bike path and five neighborhood parks on the ground level along its 2.7-mile (4.5 km) stretch.

Beth White, Chicago-area office director for TPL, said the new name is designed to be more inclusive and less confusing. “We had lots of questions [about the old name],” White explained in an interview on WTTV’s Chicago Tonight. Many people assume the project is in the town of Bloomingdale, 27 miles (44 km) to the west, she noted.

The trail also shared the name with the retailer Bloomingdale’s, she said, which might dissuade sponsorship by other retailers. “We are in a fundraising campaign. We wanted it to work for anyone that wanted to support the trail,” she said.

Created by Matt Gordon of the brand consulting firm Landor Associates, the new moniker provides an identity for the overall park project, but its components, including the Bloomingdale Trail and adjacent parks, will retain their own unique names, said White.

“I have to confess, I didn’t immediately get it,” Chicago Deputy Mayor Steve Koch told Chicago Tonight. “And then when it’s explained to you, it makes an enormous amount of sense. This thing connects various disparate neighborhoods, and it’s something we all share,” he said.

Even TPL staff members were taken aback by the name at first. “When it was first presented, we all sort of went, ‘huh?’ said White. But now, she added, “it’s what we think is going to be just the right name to express the excitement behind the project.”

“For me, it all made sense when I saw the new logo, which echoes the project’s multiple interlocking parts by literally forming a chain out of the ‘6-0-6,’” Ben Helphand, president of Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail and one of six founding members of the organization, told Urban Land. Noting that the vision for the Bloomingdale Trail has always been big, he explained, “The overgrown, elevated railroad embankment that enticed us with its de facto narrow forest trail is a chain that links a charm bracelet of existing and future parks. In practice, however, many considered the trail as the main project, with the access parks as mere add-ons.”

Gordon, a brand consultant, stood by the name in an interview with Chicago Tonight. “The 606 says this is something that belongs to everyone in Chicago. It’s something we all share – the first three digits of our zip code, if you live in Chicago. It’s a place we can all come – a place that should attract people from all over the state,” he said.

]]>http://urbanland.uli.org/fall-meeting/next-step-for-chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-a-broader-identity/feed/0Chicago’s Bloomingdale Trail Takes Rail-to-Trail Concept to Next Levelhttp://urbanland.uli.org/infrastructure-transit/chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-takes-rail-to-trail-concept-to-next-level/
http://urbanland.uli.org/infrastructure-transit/chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-takes-rail-to-trail-concept-to-next-level/#commentsWed, 19 Jun 2013 11:13:00 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/news/chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-takes-rail-to-trail-concept-to-next-level/Work will begin this summer to transform an abandoned 2.7-mile (4.4 km) stretch of elevated railway in Chicago into the Bloomingdale Trail, the city’s only pedestrian greenway and bike path running east to west, which ultimately will connect pedestrians and cyclists to trails that stretch all the way to the Indiana state line.

Work will begin this summer to transform an abandoned 2.7-mile (4.4 km) stretch of elevated railway in Chicago into the Bloomingdale Trail, the city’s only pedestrian greenway and bike path running east to west, which ultimately will connect pedestrians and cyclists to trails that stretch nearly to the Indiana state line.

Inspired by the High Line in New York City and the Promenade Plantée in Paris, also rail-to-trail projects, the Bloomingdale project (which will also be called “The 606″) will create a multifunctional park system providing an alternative transportation corridor linked to mass transit, as well as offering outdoor classrooms for children and recreational opportunities.

The project had been on the drawing board for nearly a decade when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced in March 2013 that development would finally get underway. “The Bloomingdale Park and Trail will be one of the most unique and user-friendly open spaces to be developed anywhere in the country,” he said.

Concept for a typical segment of the Bloomingdale, with elevation changes and street.

The first phase of the project, which was designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Collins Engineers, and local artist Frances Whitehead, involves the repair or replacement of 37 century-old viaducts; construction of a new bridge to provide overhead clearance for trucks; and environmental remediation of areas with contaminated soil. It also entails creation of about a dozen pedestrian ramps for the handicapped linking the trail to streets and adjacent parks; spaces for numerous art installations planned along the trail and in neighborhood parks; and landscaping and installation of hardscape features, such as benches and water fountains.

“The project balances a lot of interests,” says Ben Helphand, president and one of six founding members of Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail (FBT), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed in 2003 to advocate development of the trail. “The design team has done a delicate job, providing a minimalist design. Sometimes less is better.” Whitehead, who is also an adviser to the Trust for Public Land (TPL) for commissioning artworks, was involved in the design process from the start. The idea is to create a park that is a living work of art and sustainable at all levels, says Beth White, Chicago area office director for TPL, a national nonprofit organization that conserves land for public open space.

TPL is serving as project manager for the Bloomingdale on behalf of the Chicago Park District, a taxing entity that will own and manage the completed park. TPL also assisted the Chicago Department of Zoning and Land Use Planning, which is overseeing the planning and design of the park, with land acquisitions. TPL has also partnered with FBT to help with fundraising and community outreach.

Other partners in the project are the Chicago Department of Transportation, which is managing engineering, design, and construction, and the Bloomingdale Collaborative, which includes representatives from city agencies, the four neighborhoods the trail will traverse, and other community interest groups; the collaborative meets regularly to review progress, generate ideas, report on organizational activities, and facilitate communication among all participants in the project.

As part of the sustainability effort, some old structures will be used as aesthetic enhancements. Old bridge piers at St. Louis Avenue, for example, will be left in place to create the effect of Roman ruins for those passing on the street level. In addition, concrete, rocks, railroad ties, rails, and other materials will be recycled or reused for trail or park enhancements.

Funding for the work, projected to cost $91 million, is coming from a mix of federal, state, and local sources, as well as private donations and corporate philanthropy. Fundraising so far has generated $39 million in federal matching grants, $4 million from the Chicago Park District and Cook County, and $12 million in private and corporate donations, White says. The city is providing $2.9 million in tax increment financing funds to create two new rail spurs near the western end of the future trail to accommodate rail lines that continue to use tracks at the end of the viaduct for car staging and switching operations.

The overall goal is “to give everyone a walk in the park and connect people to nature, each other, public transit, and bike trails,” White says. She notes that the Bloomingdale Trail will reunite four ethnically and economically diverse neighborhoods—Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Wicker Park, and Bucktown—that have been separated by the railway since it was built in 1910. A total of 80,000 people live in these communities, 24,000 of whom are children.

The city has fast-tracked the project with the goal of having the basic trails open in fall 2014; enhancements, such as landscaping, hardscapes, and art installations, will take place over time, notes White.

A Linear Park System

Running along Bloomingdale Avenue, through four densely populated northwest Chicago neighborhoods, this overgrown railroad right-of-way—currently occupied by broken rocks, creosote-coated railroad ties, and steel rails—will serve as the backbone of a new linear park system. The 13-acre (5.3 ha) park will consist of the 30-foot-wide (9 m) strip of parkland and five adjacent neighborhood parks in a configuration that White likens to a charm bracelet.

The neighborhood parks will provide access to two paths on top of the rail right-of-way, elevated 15 feet (4.6 m) above street level. One will be a 14-foot-wide (4.3 m) landscaped trail with seating, art installations, and other hardscape features; the other will be a meandering nature path.

The Railway’s History
Trains began operating along Bloomingdale Avenue in 1872, just a year after the Great Chicago Fire. But in 1910, following a high number of pedestrian deaths from train accidents, the city council passed an ordinance requiring that the tracks be elevated.

Traffic on the elevated rails dwindled along with the city’s manufacturing industries, and the Canadian Pacific Railroad finally abandoning the tracks in the mid-1990s. People began talking about doing something with the unused railway later that decade, and the FBT was launched in 2003. The idea of turning the railway into a greenway got a boost in 2008 when the Sauganash Trail, a path for hiking and biking along a converted railway, opened in a low-population area on Chicago’s far northwest side. As a result of FBT’s advocacy, the railroad this past January sold the rail right-of-way for $1 to the city of Chicago, which conveyed it to the Chicago Park District.

The railway is officially off limits to the public, but “people are already up there jogging and walking their dogs, even though access is poor and they’re not supposed to be there,” says Steve Baird, a national TPL board member and chair of the local TPL advisory board. He notes that the elevation of the trail, two-to-three stories above ground level, will provide “a treetop view of city.”

“The Bloomingdale is rooted into neighborhoods,” says Helphand. People have been using the trail walking dogs and jogging since the trains stopped running, he notes. “This space was crying out to be a park and trail,” he said, pointing out that nature took over when the railroad abandoned the tracks, creating a narrow nature preserve.

But just part of the story is above ground level. Pedestrians and neighborhood children have been taking refuge from storms underneath the viaducts supporting the railroad for the past hundred years, Helphand notes. In addition, more than 100 murals created by the Community Art Project, sponsored by the Chicago Art Group and Logan Square Neighborhood Association, line the trail infrastructure. Many will be lost during redevelopment, but some will be spared as elements with cultural value to the communities.

Community Inclusivity
Because of the community’s connection to the old railway and its infrastructure, “there was a recognition from the start to think big and be inclusive,” says Helphand. “This project is a world-class design because it involved community members. The process was set up in a smart, inclusive way and unfolded in a way we had imagined it, which made our job easier.” Getting the community’s agenda included in plans simplified FBTs advocacy work, he explains.

FBT led the initial community outreach, launching activities to engage the community, including a bilingual survey involving 700 participants; lectures for specific interest groups, such as scientists and wildflower enthusiasts; and community meetings, including a public charrette at the YMCA. Public meetings provided a forum for discussion of neighborhood concerns about privacy, safety, and security.

FBT also worked to keep people interested during the Great Recession of 2007–2008. “We got pretty creative to keep the project alive, because during the recession everything was at a standstill,” says Helphand. “We showcased plans for the Bloomingdale envisioned by architectural students, who had made this a studio project. Some of the ideas were out there, but the show generated interest and public awareness and expanded peoples’ minds as to what is possible.”

The group also created a Burma Shave–style sign concept with the theme “Look Up” during an annual cycling event that passes under the trail. Another event, themed “Show Your Love for the Bloomingdale,” was held on two Valentine’s Days, playing up the trail’s potential as a romantic place.

TPL has been engaged in outreach activities since becoming involved in 2005, hiring a public engagement specialist who visited churches and schools and went door-to-door inviting people to public meetings, as well as published a newsletter, says Helphand.

“Thousands [of people] have been involved in every aspect of the trail,” he says. “The designers listened to people who live there. They stayed after meetings talking with people in the community, and when I saw that, I realized we were in good hands. As a result of this process, the design team’s thinking changed.”

“I’ve been really delighted, says White. “I’ve been doing this for years, but I have never seen such overwhelming support as for this project.” Despite concerns involving the interface of public and private realms, community support has grown, she notes.

Creating a Multifunctional Masterpiece
The project is the brainchild of FBT, which raised the idea during city planning meetings to develop the CitySpace Plan. This process, which analyzed open-space needs for each of the city’s 77 communities, ranked the Humboldt Park and Logan Square neighborhoods numbers two and six in terms of shortage of open space, says Helphand. It was at these meetings that the founding members of FBT met.

Helphand, who also is a Bloomingdale-area resident, notes that unlike other elevated trails, which are simply recreational projects, the Bloomingdale will serve many different needs. “This isn’t just a cool thing to do—not just a park in the sky—but will serve practical functions, alongside reuse of industrial [land] to create green space in neighborhoods with very few other opportunities,” he says.

Noting that completion of project will bring the trail within 17 blocks of the city center and three miles (4.8 km) of the city’s Riverwalk, Baird, says the trail eventually will provide a convenient way to traverse the city. Future plans call for connecting the trail to the city’s Riverwalk and Lakefront Trail, which extend all the way to Indiana. “Cyclists will be able to ride their bikes to downtown without crossing a street or stopping for a stop sign or traffic light. There’s nowhere else in the city you can do that,” Baird says. “It’s pretty amazing.”

“The Bloomingdale fits so nicely into so many community needs,” Helphand continues. It will link pedestrians with train and bus routes, provide the area’s nearly two dozen schools with an outdoor classroom for studying nature; give cyclists an east–west bike path, provide an outdoor laboratory for scientists, and offer a recreational area for exercise.

Effect on Property Values
The project will have a major impact on neighborhoods, predicts Baird, who is also president and CEO of the local real estate brokerage Baird & Warner. “Once done, I think this will be a huge amenity and will do a tremendous amount for property values,” he says. In anticipation of the project, a lot of development is taking place in these neighborhoods, with new homes being built along the trail and older homes being renovated.

TPL is providing screens, walls, and railings to ensure privacy for people living along the trail. “Some people want to be screened from the trail and others want to look at it,” he notes. Those people building and renovating homes along the trail generally prefer an open view, he notes.

Addressing the issue of potential gentrification, White notes that neighborhoods on the eastern end of the trail are already highly developed. She adds that studies show parks have a positive impact on property values, but emphasizes that for working-class neighborhoods to the west—Humboldt Park and Logan Square—“the Bloomingdale is a family asset that will serve the community rather than the type of development that would flip a community.”

“It’s not often that one gets to work on something like this,” adds Helphand. “This is an opportunity to really transform Chicago, and it’s already happening.”

]]>http://urbanland.uli.org/infrastructure-transit/chicago-s-bloomingdale-trail-takes-rail-to-trail-concept-to-next-level/feed/0Civita: San Diego’s New City within the Cityhttp://urbanland.uli.org/planning-design/civita-san-diego-s-new-city-within-the-city/
http://urbanland.uli.org/planning-design/civita-san-diego-s-new-city-within-the-city/#commentsFri, 19 Apr 2013 15:06:00 +0000http://urbanland.uli.org/news/civita-san-diego-s-new-city-within-the-city/The Civita mixed-use development is a model for San Diego’s “City of Villages” planning strategy. But the development’s progressive ideas blazed new territory, and nearly a decade passed before the developer obtained approvals to begin construction.

Village Walk, the retail destination at Civita, lies in the center of the development so that all residents are within walking distance.

Designed by local architect and planner Gordon Carrier, a principal at Carrier Johnson & Culture, the project is creating a high-density urban village organized around a network of parks and open space, with housing, retail, office, and civic components linked by pedestrian trails, walkable streets, and bike paths.

Formerly known as Quarry Falls, Civita is a joint venture of locally based Sudberry Properties and the Grant Family Trust, which has owned the property since the late 1920s. Mined for 70 years, the site’s hillside had been bored down to the water table and the pit was filled with rubble and trash, says Colton Sudberry, president and chief executive officer of the Sudberry development company. He notes that Vulcan Materials, the last company to mine the sand and gravel quarry, built the site up 30 feet (9 m) with engineered fill to create a stable foundation.

Plans call for 60 to 70 acres (24 to 28 ha) of parks and open space; 4,780 residential units; and 900,000 square feet (83,613 sq m) of commercial space in three components. Commercial development includes the following: Village Walk, a town center with 400,000 square feet (37,161 sq m) of retail amenities and possibly some housing and office space; an urban village center, with a mix of affordable housing integrated vertically with 100,000 square feet (9,290 sq m) of neighborhood retail and possibly boutique office space; and a stand-alone office campus with 400,000 square feet (37,161 sq m) of Class A space.

Walkable by Design

The $2 billion project embraces San Diego’s “City of Villages” planning concept, which calls for everything needed by residents to be within walking distance of their homes or accessible by mass transit, says Brian Schoenfisch, the city’s senior planner for the project.

“A strong point of this development is it provides an opportunity to live within Mission Valley, which is one of the city’s job centers, without owning a car,” Schoenfisch says.

Shea’s Skyloft project is a component of Origen, a contemporary condo community that opened in June 2012. Units are priced from the mid-$400,000s.

Sudberry has partnered with ECOtality, Inc., a San Francisco-based company focused on clean electric transportation and storage technologies, to install electric car chargers on Civita’s streets. “This allowed us to create a partnership with Car2Go,” says Marco Sessa, Sudberry’s senior vice president for residential and land development. Sessa says Car2Go rents Daimler-Chrysler electric “smart cars” by the minute. “This service will allow couples to manage without owning two cars,” he says.

The first phase of Civita, which is being developed in four phases over ten years, is now half completed. Phase I will include four apartment complexes with a total of 1,218 units, one of which will be a mixed-use project with up to 100,000 square feet (9,290 sq m) of retail space on the ground level; four for-sale condominium or townhouse projects, with a total of 399 units; 45 single-family, patio-style homes; and a 14-acre (5.6 ha) central park, with a heritage museum and amphitheater. Sessa notes that the Phase I geographic area also includes additional lots for vertical development, including four residential neighborhoods and one mixed-use block, that will be released as projects currently under development are absorbed.

Located about three miles (5 km) from downtown San Diego and the international airport, the Civita development comprises 135 acres (54 ha) of the site’s total 230.5 acres (93 ha), 95 acres (38 ha) of which is slated for residential projects; the remaining 40 acres (16 ha) will contain mixed uses and retail on the southern portion of the property, nearest to the area’s network of freeways and local thoroughfares. Friars Road, a major east–west access road lined with retail destinations, runs along the southern edge of development. Sudberry plans to build a bridge across Friars Road to provide residents with pedestrian access to the Rio Vista Station of San Diego’s light-rail trolley system and Rio Vista Shopping Center, a Sudberry-owned lifestyle center. Plans call for a shuttle service to provide regular transportation to the trolley station, probably commencing with completion of Phase II, according to Sessa.

Civita achieved a Stage 1 Gold rating for the U.S. Green Building Council’s 2009 LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development) pilot and received the 2009 Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award. It also is one of 13 projects statewide designated as a California Catalyst Community. This program is sponsored by the California Department of Housing and Community Development to support innovation and test sustainable strategies that reflect the interdependence of environmental, economic, and community health. Projects with this designation are eligible for targeted technical assistance from teams of state agencies and for bonus points when applying for specific state funding programs.

The project restores ecological integrity to the old quarry, and more than one-third of the site is devoted to open space and parks. Development is expected to surpass California’s strict Title 24 building standards, which require new buildings to reduce energy usage by 15 percent, water usage by 20 percent, and construction waste by 50 percent. Civita is expected to exceed those mandates by double-digit margins.

Residential development is designed to reduce use of water and electricity by orienting buildings to take advantage of natural ventilation and daylighting. Shade trees and other forms of vegetation are being strategically located near buildings to reduce heat gain in summer and increase warmth in winter.

Sudberry has an agreement with San Diego Gas & Electric to experiment with energy technologies, notes Sessa. Emerging technologies that conserve water and energy and generate electricity are being incorporated with tried-and-true concepts, such as photovoltaic solar panels, Energy Star appliances, and WaterSense fixtures.

Credit: Sudberry PropertiesCirca 37, a residential rental project, generates 150 kW of electricity—enough to power 80 percent of the common areas’ needs.

In addition, Sudberry’s Circa 37—a 360-unit multifamily project that opened in January 2012—is the first apartment community in the San Diego area to install a 150-kilowatt (kW) energy-generation system. It incorporates rooftop photovoltaic solar with two 5-kW fuel cells, a technology that both generates and stores electricity; the system is expected to produce 80 percent of the electricity needed to power the complex’s common areas. Sessa points out that on-site power generation also provides the ability to deal with power outages, providing residents a lit refuge in common areas until power is restored. It also eliminates the question of who pays for recharging electric cars in the public domain.

The company is scheduled to break ground this spring on West Park, a ten-acre (4 ha), 610-unit apartment complex, which also incorporates solar with fuel-cell technology. But this project will ramp up power generation by installing six 5-kW fuel cells and adding solar panels to carport rooftops. “We also plan to eventually install interactive, smart appliances, which turn on at certain times as needed,” Sessa says, noting that this technology is still a couple of years away from being cost-effective, as smart appliances currently cost about $6,000 each.

Other opportunities for sustainability have been seized. Sand and gravel from the former quarry are being incorporated into roads; old concrete is being recycled. More shade trees will be planted than the city requires, and reclaimed water will be used for irrigation. Sudberry also plans to build a water treatment plant. “San Diego is at the end of the water pipe, so we want to control our own water destiny to the extent that we can,” Sessa explains.

Housing Affordability

Lucent, a four-story luxury condominium project, is scheduled to open in December.

About 10 percent of Civita’s residential product—478 units—will be affordable housing. Three or four affordable projects for low-income seniors and families will be sprinkled throughout the site, says Sessa. Chelsea Investments, a local affordable housing developer, was recently selected to build the first affordable project, which will consist of 150 units for seniors. He notes that the next affordable project is likely to be a mixed-use development, with housing for families and ground-floor retail services.

Sudberry is erecting market-rate rental projects in partnership with the Grant family. “We are an investment builder, in it for the long term,” says Sessa. “This makes us different [than apartment developers who build to sell] in that we are putting more [effort and money] into architecture and durable, maintenance-free components.”

The company has partnered with Shea Homes San Diego and Irvine, California-based TRI Pointe Homes to build the project’s for-sale housing. “We are trying to bring various types of housing into the mix,” Sessa explains, “and are segmenting the marketplace so we create homes that don’t compete with each other.”

He stresses, however, that housing affordability is a top goal at Civita. “We want to achieve certain price points, with entry-level homes in the $300,000s and $400,000s,” he notes.

So far, Shea is only the homebuilder with completed for-sale product. Origen, their 200-unit condominium project, opened in June 2012. It was designed by the Santa Ana, California, office of Woodley Architectural Group and is half finished, with home production based on sales, notes Paul Barnes, president of Shea Homes San Diego. Units range from about 1,400 to 2,100 square feet (130 to 195 sq m) and are priced from the mid-$400,000s to the mid-$500,000s.

The company also expects to open three new communities this year. Two communities, Focus and Frame, are scheduled to open in October. Focus is a project of 64 rowhomes measuring 1,585 to 1,983 square feet (147 to 184 sq m) with small yards, priced in the low $400,000s. Frame, priced in the high $400,000s, will offer 76 two-story townhomes with a motor-court parking configuration, in which units are wrapped around a central garage to allow residents to enter their homes directly from the garage.

Scheduled to open in October, Focus—a rowhouse community—has small yards and units priced in the low $400,000s.

The Frame townhouse community—also scheduled to open in October—is configured with a wrap parking structure, which allows residents to enter their homes from the garage.

Lucent, a four-story condominium community offering one-story luxury flats, is scheduled to begin sales in December. Units will range from 1,467 to 2,078 square feet (136 to 193 sq m), with prices from the $500,000s to the $600,000s. The project is geared to people who prefer one-level living, with elevator access and motor-court-style parking.

Builder TRI Pointe is scheduled to begin home sales at the Altana community in June. It will include 45 detached patio-style homes on 3.5-acre (1.4 ha) lots. Homes ranging from 1,668 to 2,180 square feet (155 to 202 sq m) will have base prices from the high $500,000s to the mid-$600,000s. Homes will be configured in a courtyard layout, on an elevated site adjacent to the community’s main paseo and central park.

A Return to Ecological Health

Every aspect of the project’s design is intended to enhance quality of life and create value for residents, with thoughtful, innovative planning to create a healthy, sustainable environment and unique identity for the community, according to Sessa, who suggests that Civita provides a truly urban infill environment combined with suburban master-planning concepts.

Biomimicry was used to create an ecologically natural drainage system and reestablish plant and animal habitats. Twenty-five acres (10 ha) of slopes left from mining operations were revegetated with native plants and terraced. The terraced hillside offers scenic elevations, but—of greater importance—acts as a conduit for stormwater runoff and helps prevent erosion.

A dry creek running through the property was designed as a bioswale to collect and clean stormwater of pollutants as it flows slowly into a retention pond, which doubles as a water feature, Sudberry says, noting that the water eventually flows into the San Diego River, which empties into Mission Bay.

“The creek is the right width and depth to support natural drainage without water piping under streets, so our streets could be narrower than traditional streets,” Sessa notes. He explains that the advantage of narrow streets is room for extra-wide sidewalks and additional landscaping between the streets and sidewalks, which increase safety for pedestrians.

Residential buildings are positioned so that residences have entry on the street, with lower units having a stoop where residents can relax, creating energy on streets. Public domain areas have enhanced architectural and landscaping elements to fashion an identity for the community. Enhancements include artwork and designer features, such as stamped-concrete paving and tile, as well as whimsical elements that support identity in the public realm, like castings, famous quotes, and funny sayings—”stuff that makes people smile when they walk around,” Sessa says.

Civita’s Specific Plan includes a public parks system designed by the Schmidt Design Group of San Diego, a firm that specializes in designing sustainable public spaces. The plan calls for a 14-acre (5.6 ha) central park and several smaller neighborhood and pocket parks.

The central park—construction of which is about to get underway—will be linked to all Civita neighborhoods with a network of pedestrian trails and bike paths. The plan calls for a variety of active and passive amenities, including sports and recreation facilities, such as basketball and volleyball courts, a fitness course, trails, and playgrounds, as well as pastoral areas with picnic tables and barbecue grills and seating located at viewpoints. The park will serve as a gathering place for community events and include an amphitheater and Heritage Museum that will be operated by the San Diego River Park Foundation.

Long Wait for Approvals

While Civita may be an example of innovation, smart growth, and sustainability, getting the project entitled was a major challenge for the developer. The design/entitlement process began in early 2002, with the city council finally approving Civita’s Environmental Impact Report and Specific Plan in 2008. But development did not begin until 2010, when final maps were approved, notes Sessa. “So [approvals took] a total of nine years,” he says. “It’s become a habit to say almost a decade.”

Sudberry notes that the lengthy approval process was due in part to the scale and density of the project. The density, which ranges from seven to 100 units per acre (17 to 247 units per ha), raised concerns about how the project would affect existing infrastructure and traffic patterns. The city required traffic studies to determine how the project would affect local intersections, as well as freeway on- and off-ramps.

Another issue involves the site’s location in two planning districts. About six acres (2.4 ha) lie within the Serra Mesa planning district and the rest lies in Mission Valley. “Serra Mesa didn’t want a road connection from Mission Valley, but Mission Valley did,” Sudberry notes. “We did traffic studies with and without it, but no one could make a decision. The city finally approved the plan and is now doing its own traffic study, but we redesigned the street grid so we can go either way.”

Acknowledging the lengthy approval process, Schoenfisch notes, “This was sort of a laboratory of new concepts for sustainability.” But he explains that other issues evolved as a result of new state regulations coming on line during the entitlement period, including AB 32 and SB 375.

AB 32 requires local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to 1990 levels by 2020. SB 375 sets GHG targets for different regions and connects land use to AB 32 goals. It seeks to eliminate sprawl by encouraging cities to adopt a general plan with a sustainable-communities strategy, which requires new development to be near transit or clustered with existing development. Local governments are not required to comply with SB 375; but if they do not, they will not share in the state’s annual $6 billion transportation fund.

Sessa notes that all the challenges and per­severance “translate into higher values and greater absorption.” As for the city’s benefits, Schoenfisch says, “At the end of the day, we [the city] ended up with a showcase project. It is a good model we can point to when other developers come in with a project to show [them] ‘this is what we want to see in your project.’”